High-grade nickel-steel alloys and related materials are typically used for the manufacture of aircraft parts and other high-stress, high-temperature applications. These materials are necessarily difficult to cut or machine and tend to be expensive so waste should be avoided. Cutting of these high-strength alloys usually requires the use of abrasive cut-off wheels that are consumed in the cutting process, posing a potential air pollution hazard for the machine operator and those nearby. It is often desirable to divide a rough billet of such material into nearly identical size multiples or "mults" for further forging or machining. If the mults can be identically sized and a minimum of material lost in the cutting, the process will be more economical.
Various types of machines have been developed for precision cutting of billets. Examples include: U.S. Pat. No. 5,109,740 issued to Kohn et al. is directed to a billet cut-off control in which the shearing system is controlled by information detected as the logs emerge from the furnace. The detection system comprises an electric eye unit and an eddy-current detector that are mounted on the side of the path of the logs emerging from the furnace.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,031,493 issued to Dorr, is directed to an ultrasonic control system for shearing-type cut-off machines. The mechanism is controlled by ultrasonically measuring the bar stock and adjusting the length of sheared bar stock to assure a uniform volume in the sheared product.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,678,466, issued to Wahl is directed to a process and a device for lubricating and cooling cutting edges and/or workpieces in machining processes with chip removal. Fluids are fed to the cutting edges or workpieces in the machining operation, thus providing the cooling while chip removal collects the waste material and allows for recovering the material in order to decrease the cost of the operation.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,084,972 issued to Waugh is directed to a device for collecting dust from a portable circular saw. Such dust collecting is desirable and virtually essential to the safe and economical operation of billet cutting operations.
U.S. Pat. No. Re. 33,904 issued to Rudy et al. is directed to a method and apparatus for automatically cutting food products to predetermined weight or shape. As the food products move along a conveyor, a camera provides a programmed computer with dimensional data and thus the computer is able to control the operation of the cutters in order to cut the material into portions of equal weight.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,347,770 issued to Mosey et al. describes an apparatus for radially cutting cylindrical material having an idling roller, a clamping roller, and a driven roller geared to a circular saw arbor constraining and rotating the cylindrical stock against the saw blade.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,611 issued to the present inventor, discloses a machine which employs an abrasive cut-off wheel that engages a rotating billet by being driven downwardly toward the billet along an angled ramp.
While other inventions exist having features desirable for efficient cutting of mults from billets the above-described designs for cut-off machinery and related features are typical of those encountered in the prior art.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide for cutting of mults of precisely described dimensions from billets of high-strength alloys. It is a further objective to provide such precision cutting with a minimum of waste. It is yet a further objective to permit the safe and economical cutting of mults from both cylindrical billets and those of irregular cross-section. It is yet another objective of the invention to provide a means for efficiently recycling the waste material produced by the cutting process while minimizing any pollution produced by the process. It is still another objective to provide a means to maintain a constant surface speed of the cutting means with respect to the billet despite wear of the cutting means. It is a still further objective of the invention to control the temperature of the cutting process to maximize cutting speed while minimizing heat distortion and wear of the cutting means. Finally, it is an objective of the invention to provide the above-described capabilities in an inexpensive and durable machine, which is capable of extended duty cycles, and that may be easily repaired and maintained.
While some of the objectives of the present invention are satisfied by features disclosed in the prior art, none of the inventions found include all of the requirements identified.